Local spirits

July 12, 2:20 PMBoston Fringe Neighborhoods ExaminerWhalehead King

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Anyone who has been to a Boston area package store has seen the products of Allen's, Ltd. on offer.  Allen's is a distillery located in Somerville, Mass, a short hop away from Boston proper on the Green Line and also the Red.  The Allen's Distillery doesn't have much of an internet presence but their influence can be felt in the communities that ring Massachusetts Bay, with tendrils snaking all over New England. 

Little nip bottles of Allen's Ginger Brandy are a regular feature next to package store cash registers.  Our readers from outside New England may wonder what a package store is, exactly.  It's a liquor store.  We informally call them 'packies.'  In Puritan New England you don't go to a store to buy liquor.  You go to pick up a package.

Allen's Distillery bottles all sorts of spirits but the one with the most attractive label is Cossack Brand vodka, product of U.S.A.  The label on the body of the bottle features a reproduction  engraving of "The Attack Upon Petrograd."  by Leon Ardsky  The internet is likewise mum about Mr. Ardsky's contribution to Boston-based culture even though his depiction of the Petrograd battle is sold in packies all over the Commonwealth and in surrounding states.

I don't attach a picture of this print because it is readily available to anyone who buys a bottle of Cossack Vodka, no matter in what increment.